Humberto Angulo swears by working hard, drinking castor oil every morning and keeping active is the secret to his longevity. Angulo, a resident of Carrillo, Guanacaste, is getting ready to celebrate his 98th birthday and is looking forward to his 100th.

Angulo told his story to Irene Rodríguez of the La Nación of how he lives today like he did 30 years ago, getting up each morning at 5:30am, feeding the chickens and help out with the house chores.

“I am still here because God wants it, but I have helped him as well”, said Angulo, who shares his stories of how as a child he has gotten up at the early hours of the morning, feeding the animals before heading out to school.

“You must keep moving, so that God sees you want to live”, says Angulo.

The almost 98 year old man lives in area of Guanacaste that is internationally declared a “blue zones”, a region of the world where people commonly live active lives past the age of 100 years.

In Costa Rica, Carrillo, Santa Cruz, Nicoya, Hojancha and Nandayure, all in Guanacaste, are “blue zones”.

Among other “blue zones” in the world are in Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; Loma Linda, California, and Icaria, Greece.

Scientists and demographers have classified these longevity hot-spots by having common healthy traits and life practices that result in higher-than-normal longevity. The name blue zone seems to be first employed in a scientific article by a team of demographers working on centenarians in Sardinia in 2004.

In Costa Rica life expectancy is 78.7 years.

Currently there are 9.995 Costa Ricans over the age of 90, of which 417 are over 100.

Original article at http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2010/may/16/costarica10051604.htm